Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The Music Machine (1965-69) great Garage/Proto punk/Psych band from LA..The singers voice reminds me a bit of the great Arthur Lee who will be the subject of our next post.

RAWK!

(Plus, the singer is playing one of those weird Martin electrics - first time I think I've seen one in a promo clip.)

Talk about timing. I stumbled across this forum yesterday and was going to add a thread on this group. The singer is Sean Bonniwell, and he is also the writer. When I started playing in the early '60's, he was in a folk group in Charleston, SC called "The Wayfarers". My bands shared a few stages with them. They were nice guys (older than us) and were entertaining as Hell; often changing lyrics like on "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" for comic relief. They were signed to RCA and released an album "Live At The Hungry I" right at the end of the Folk Boom. I think they had a couple of others as well.
Our band learned "Talk, Talk", and when I saw the writing credited to "Bonniwell", I went, "Hmmmm-I wonder...." and did a little checking and found that lo and behold, it was him. His subsequent ventures have largely failed.
A few years back, I re-established contact with the Wayfarers' Banjo player, Ray Blouin. After college, he became a Coast Guard Officer and served 25-30 years. His son Blaise was a skateboarder of some note and a friend of my son's. Blaise died tragically, and my son established a website in his honor. In the course of that, he got in touch with Ray and got his contact info to me. He is living in the mountains of Western Virginia and still playing Bluegrass and Americana on guitar and banjo. He is occasionally in contact with Sean.

Awesome! I love it! What's the other guitar? A Guild or De Armond, I'm guessing?

The other Guitar is a Guild Starfire. It was later changed to a double-cut like an ES-335. Recent Guild imports used the "DeArmond" name and in fact did a nice "Starfire". The imports were too nice and cut into Guild sales. Fender quickly discontinued them. I was fortunate enough to get an MT-77 (LP-style w/USA made DeArmond single coils and a Bigsby) in "6120 Orange". I put a shim under the bridge pickup to raise it a little, strung it with D'Addario 11-49's and have a "Gretsch Killer". I highly recommend the DeArmonds and predict prices will rise as word gets out.
It's appropriate that Sean is playing the Martin Electric. He had a Martin endorsement with The Wayfarer's and I'm sure he was given the electric as well.
When we played "Talk, Talk", I played our bass players Oly White Fender Bass VI thru a Maestro Fuzztone (he also had a Precision and Jazz which he played) to get that low, fuzzy part.

We used to cover "Eagle Never Hunts the Fly" as well as "Talk Talk" in a '60s band I was in back in the 1980's. One of my favorite obscure bands of that era, along with the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

+1 Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

How 'bout THESE guys? I love the "I'm A Man"-style "freak out". The last gig I played with The Pendeltons in '67 ended with this song. I bought a cheap Harmony at a pawnshop for $20 bucks and did my best Pete Townsend on it. Wish someone had taken pictures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9a4W2FZnpc[youtube][/youtube]

This band is one of those ones that had the great garage songs and the gimmick of being in all black with one black glove. Talk Talk is such an awesome song.

Pretty sweet Eko Hofner bass copy too. I have one of those!

Well, at least fuzz and combo organ (Vox Continental) and a few shots of axeman Hilton Valentine with a Ric.

Jeez, major flashback; I spent a good chunk of the 80s in the 60s garage scene revival. I have a bunch of this stuff on vinyl, and still have my thin lapel coats, skinny ties, pegged Levi's, Beatle Boots, and a ton of this stuff on vinyl. The tab collar shirts and black turtlenecks all wore out though.

paologregorio wrote:Jeez, major flashback; I spent a good chunk of the 80s in the 60s garage scene revival. I have a bunch of this stuff on vinyl, and still have my thin lapel coats, skinny ties, pegged Levi's, Beatle Boots, and a ton of this stuff on vinyl. The tab collar shirts and black turtlenecks all wore out though.

Vinyl

kennyhowes wrote:RAWK!

(Plus, the singer is playing one of those weird Martin electrics - first time I think I've seen one in a promo clip.)

I got to try one of those way back when, and was impresseed with it-great low action neck and good tone.

I have a EKO bass similar to that and I used it at last Tues(5-18) gig at the 5 Monkeys.

elreydlp wrote:The other Guitar is a Guild Starfire. It was later changed to a double-cut like an ES-335. Recent Guild imports used the "DeArmond" name and in fact did a nice "Starfire".

Saw this post and my heart SEIZED ....I owned a Guild Starfire IV back in the day.....it had an unattached floating bridge....impossible to tune or keep in tune, unless you were Andres Segovia or Chet Atkins......not good for club work.....pretty guitar, though....real nice case....